Discussions and thoughts in the areas of Social Media Marketing, B2B Social Media, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Social Media for Startups and more.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Brands Paying Heavy Price for Social Media Insensitivity

Yes, social media undoubtedly offers a great way to brands to connect with the consumers, build emotional rapport and have a more personalized connection with them. And when we talk about emotional connection, it is important that the brands remain sensitive about what they publish on social media.

Here are examples of some social media disasters where brands had to pay a heavy price for being insensitive on social media.

#1: Chipotle Mexican Grill

Recently Chipotle faked its Twitter hack.

Undoubtedly, it got the attention from public.
The number of followers increased – but are they really the people who want to
engage with the brand? I doubt. The supposedly hacked tweets got thousands of
RTs. But are these creating any value for the brand or for the audience? Not at
all!

I firmly
believe and continue to reiterate that brands need to look at quality of
conversations and engagement through social media – rather than the numbers
like followers and RTs only.

I am sure
ardent fans of Chipotle certainly did not appreciate this stunt and somewhere
the trust was shaken.

#2:
Volkswagen India

Volkswagen
India did a “vibrating newspaper” ad in leading newspapers across India. Indeed
an innovation – it became the talk of the Twitter town and blogosphere. Positive
and negative comments started pouring in. Volkswagen unfortunately was not prepared to handle the attention.
There were
many tweets about the vibrating newspaper not being appreciated. In response to
that (probably as a defense), Volkswagen India tweeted “Women would be dumb to call it a vibrator. Or maybe they do not
understand real driving experience. #PunIntended #Volkswagen #Creative”.

Obviously
such sexist tweet was retweeted many times and received lot of backlashing. Volkswagen
deleted the tweet and all the ReTweets. But the following screenshot, taken by
Nandita remained and that will continue to remind people about the
insensitivity shown by Volkswagen. Yes, Volkswagen responded after more than 3
days that its Twitter handle was compromised and they are looking into it – but
is anybody in the mood to listen?

(Via Social Samosa)

Mistakes
happen but brands really need to learn handling negative comments on social media.
Deleting the tweet or post is NOT an option.

#3: Hyundai

In April
2013, Hyundai released an ad for British market depicting a man attempting suicide
by suffocating himself with exhaust fumes inside his Hyundai car. But he fails because
the Hyundai ix35 fuel cell car emits only water vapor.

While the ad makers were patting their backs when The Drum magazine named it as Ad of the Week, something happened - A few days after the ad was released, an advertising copywriter
in London posted a blog post in which she posted the suicide note of her father
who had committed suicide in exactly the same manner.

The blog
post immediately went viral – and the ad became viral for all the wrong
reasons. Hyundai did tweet an apology and withdrew the ad. But the copies of
the ad were already out on YouTube and other channels. How to handle the
crisis is a different story, but I think suicide should not be promoted in advertising
in any way. Period.

#4: KFC, Thailand

In April
2012, after an earthquake of 8.5 Richter at the coast of Indonesia, the whole Thailand
was watching tsunami warnings and was fearing the worst. At such time, KFC Thailand
thought of ‘cashing’ on it and posted on its Facebook wall:

“Let’s hurry home and follow the earthquake
news. And don’t forget to order your favorite KFC menu.”

Such
insensitive post, on the company Facebook wall, was obviously not appreciated by
the people who were associated with the brand on Facebook. When thousands
of people lost their lives in Tsunami, all this food chain could think of was
its Chicken. Although the post was taken down later on, it had done the damage.

#5: American Apparel

In October
2012, when Sandy Hurricane hit the East Coast of United States and was creating
havoc in that part of the country, the leading retailer American Apparel thought
that it could cash on this by offering ‘discounts’ to people!

(Via Forbes)

Along with a
very ‘helpful map’, American Apparel sent out an email announcing 20% discount for 36 hours for the customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New
Jersey, Delaware, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Unsurprisingly, the Twitterati backlashed it in
a big way – to the extent where people announced on Twitter about them boycotting
the American Apparel stores. The damage was irreversible.

3 comments:

Hello Radha, beautiful information. There is one question which is to be discussed, are not the social media campaigning being expensive day by day, the algorithms are being changed? Compare the impressions and reach against the price paid today and 6 months back... we get to see a huge difference

Thanks Manish, glad you enjoyed the post. Well yes, the costing has gone up - primarily because of changes in algorithms but creative campaigns continue to get virality - more thinking work for marketers :) plus there is so much content overload that it's all the more important to stand out.